The term Diaspora originated from the Greek and Jewish history. It means dispersal in Greek, though; it was widely used to express the process of scattering of the Jews in the west. African-Americans perceive diaspora in a different context: to them, it describes the quest for liberation form injustice, colonialism and racism.
African diaspora, therefore, is deeply rooted in scholarly debates serving as both a political and analytical term in examining black communities across territorial borders. Politically, the term serves to emphasize unification of Africans disconnected due to the slave trade. As an analytical term, African diaspora allows exploration into transformation and involvement of the dispersed Africans in establishing new cultures, ideas, and institutions out of Africa.
Broadly, the term allows analysis of problems that impede establishment of pan-African movements worldwide. The issue arouses attention to construction and mitigation of diasporic identities. The issue of diasporan consciousness also emerges when seeking to understand pan-African movements (Patterson and Kelly, 2000, p. 14).
Dispersal from native home, as a result of violence, forms an important element of diasporan consciousness. Separated people visualize and memorize their homeland and remain committed towards restoration. The consciousness is not restricted to people of a given homeland but traverses to people who share a history of displacement, resistance, or adaptation.
Though diaspora is not a territory with established borders, Africans effortlessly seek for common historical roots and culture. Usually, the dispersed Africans view themselves as an oppressed nation and refer to Africa as their home. Colonization, forced labor, and racism led to the creation of coordinated systems that traversed oceans and national boundaries (Patterson and Kelly, 2000, p. 15).
According to Patterson and Kelley 2000 (20), perception of diaspora in the African context is complex and plays out as both a process and a condition. As a process, it is mitigated through political struggle, migration, travelling as well as movement. In early scholarships, black people worldwide were presumed to share a common culture. The collective identity, however, keeps shifting.
The shared experiences under racism and the process of dispersal do not point out to a common identity. Perceived identity is a product of the struggle to desist domination. Shared cultural codes provide people with a common point of reference. Anti-colonialism and pan-Africanist movements impose imaginary coherence to the dispersed forming a common history of enforced dispersal.
Dispersal depends on legal lines that restrict nationalization in democratic countries. Sometimes, indigenous cultural values are ascribed negatively while politicians exploit them for commercial gains. Follow-up study on Africans affected by slave trade across the Atlantic reveals a degree of integrity of some African cultures. The Africans transform from ethnic identities to embrace a collective identity, which labels them as one community.
At the same time, African diasporic hierarchies are formulated along societal lines through systems that hinder access based on gender and race disparities. Racial hierarchies are peculiar since they remain intact across borders. Race and ethnic identities play out a complex relationship. Ethnicity emerges as a response to sociopolitical conditions as expressed in the Brazilian case.
Racism emerges as an outcome of regional variation and demographic changes. Determinants for creation of multiple ethnic groups include free ancestry, education, and religiosity, among others. Brazilians blackness depended on social and economic advances. This dependence on economic advances created complexity in formation of identities.
Success in economic activities led to the emergence of a whitening process, which led to demarcations amongst the blacks. While Bahians related with African ethnicity, Paulistas viewed themselves as more superior regarding themselves as black Brazilians (Patterson and Kelly, 2000, p. 23).
As a condition, diaspora is directly stringed along the process through which it occurs and reinvents itself. It is, therefore, widely used in an attempt to cover up for discontinuities and differences. The concept is derived from life experience situations and explains formation of complex relationships that express alienation. Taking the United States as an example, life experiences of Africans in the U.S. is used as a standard to compare against experiences of others not in the U.S.
This is facilitated due to identification of discrepancies in studies when certain groups of African descent are ignored. Such is the case when Black people in Canada were left out leading to a poor perception of people of African descent living in the United States. The same disparity by scholars occurred when Caribbean and Portuguese speaking Blacks failed to be connected to African people living in other parts of the globe. Hanchard presents an adept study that emphasizes plurality of culture and politics.
He not only looks at the movement of black people to the new world, but also focuses on their broader dispersal within the globe. Instead of viewing African-Americans as cultural survivors, he presents a framework that views them as products of translocation.
The scholar reveals the mindset of U.S. race relations encouraging a more focused conceptualized view of the African diaspora. Hanchard brings to focus the power of black identities grounded in national or regional context (Patterson and Kelly, 2000, p. 23).
The issue of diaspora being both a process and condition cannot be discussed in isolation. This is due to the fact that the condition is always tied along the process. The example of Cuba brings the argument into perspective. Just like Brazil, Africans in Cuba had demarcations along free ancestry, educational and cultural background.
Though not all retained their African identity, during the wars for national liberation in 1868 and 1898, the identities were revived encouraging participation in the Afro-Cuban political struggles. Afro-Cubans were struggling to retain the right to be recognized as black nationals and therefore enhance participation in politics as legitimate citizens.
This led to the 1912 race war which stopped the organization of black Cubans in terms of races. Though thousands of people were massacred, the result did not deter emergence of an Afro-Cuban identity (Patterson and Kelly, 2000, p. 24).
Studies seeking further understanding of the African diaspora require an open mind. Relationships between race and identity have to be revamped if a greater understanding of the local history connection to the global development is to be achieved. Black world receives wider coverage when studied in the context of the globe, and the converse.
It is also worth noting that historical processes are not limited by national boundaries. At the same time, large water bodies act not as barriers but facilitators for transoceanic trade and cultural exchange. African diaspora as a condition better explains success in struggle that saw an end to slave regimes.
Similarly, as a process, African diaspora explains how black people were taken away from their homeland to other areas, but remained subconsciously connected to their origin and culture. New day studies need to look beyond displacement and domination, and focus on fundamental contribution of black people in the modern world (Patterson and Kelly, 2000, p. 32).
Bibliography
Patterson, T. Ruby and Robin D.G Kelley. “Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World.” African Studies Review. 43.1 (2000):14-32. Print.